Thread by @SurfCityWriter

1/ History meets politics. Michelle Steel’s .@RepSteel vote against #RespectforMarriage means she does not know California or American history.

100 years ago, her marriage was illegal in her own California district. 🧵 #history #CivilRights

2/ California banned interracial marriage 1850-1948. In 1922, Congress passed the Cable Act, which removed citizenship of any U.S. *woman* who married "an alien ineligible for citizenship." They meant Asians. This targeted Asian immigrants who were barred from US citizenship.

I wrote about an illegal marriage in 1909 in what is currently is Steel’s congressional district, between a white woman and a Japanese American man. It’s connected to an endangered National Treasure historic place she's refused to help save.

Read: historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-ma…

4/ The Inazawas ultimately left for Japan around 1921. Kate would have been stripped of her US citizenship. They were married over four decades. The last trace of Kate is in 1954, still in Japan.

Their story: historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-ma…

5/ In May 1943, a new California law required marriage licenses include the race of both parties. It was passed by an all-white male legislature to enforce the ban on interracial marriage. Note the year: in 1943, all Japanese Americans already were incarcerated due to their race.

6/ Those in “mixed” marriages were not saved from WWII incarceration. They & their children went to camp. There were some releases, made easier if the husband was white & the wife Japanese American than vice versa.

The Dischners from Orange County are an example.

7/ Lewis & Ruth Dischner operated a farm near Santa Ana. They’d just had a baby when Ruth & the baby were sent to Poston, AZ in 1942. Ruth and her multiracial baby had Japanese ancestry and were incarcerated.

8/ US Army reported in late 1942 that “a few” mixed families were investigated & permitted for release.

Ruth & her baby were allowed return to the farm in Orange County. The first sightings of her prompted phone calls from neighbors & an FBI visit/interrogation.

9/ Wartime Civilian Control stated in Sept 1942 that a white man & Japanese American wife *may* be released & live in West Coast military zone, after thorough investigation.

A Japanese American man with a white wife? Nope. Why? The stereotype of the white man making it okay.

10/ There are instances of white women going to camp with their Japanese American husbands & children. Artist Estelle Ishigo is a famous example, incarcerated at .@HeartMountainWY

WATCH video about Estelle & Arthur Ishigo: heartmountain.org/arthur-estelle…

11/ In 1948, the California Supreme Court in Perez v. Sharp ruled that the anti-miscegenation statute violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, repealing anti-miscegenation law and becoming the first state to do so since Ohio in 1887.

12/ Repeal of CA mixed marriage ban is only 3 decades before Steel’s interracial marriage in 1981.

She voted to take that civil right away. The right she benefited from when she married Shawn Steel. The right so many risked arrest for, fought for, went to prison camp for.

-fini-

These civil rights are fragile.
Assuming you're protected from this right being taken, the right to love who you choose, is an illusion.
Being married to someone thought exempt (white) doesn't protect you.
Bottom line: .@RepSteel voted against laws she benefited from.

And, -fini_ part 2:

While this thread is about interracial marriage, the right to marry the person of one's choice is and always has been a civil right. It's not the government's business. #RespectForMarriageAct